Sade’s Ethics of Emotional Restraint: Aline et Valcour Midway between Sentimentality and Apathy

Why would Sade, a staunch enemy of the moral didacticism that characterized late eighteenth-century French literature, write the sentimental novel Aline et Valcour, which is ostensibly foreign to the rest of his thought? A philosophical interpretation of this work allows us to bring to light how, in his novel, Sade skillfully reconstructs the conception of sentimentalist emotion—encapsulated in Rousseau’s thought—and counterposes it with a new analysis of passions that is no longer based on empathy but rather on interpersonal domination. Through peculiar physiological and philosophical premises, Sade succeeds in delineating a paradoxical ethics of emotional restraint.